L'alchimie des ondes

Alchemy of Waves are color-changing light boxes that slowly shift landscape photographs and their light rays through the full color spectrum, confronting us with the ways in which our fragile perception of light transforms our experience of the world around us.

Paracosmic Sun

In the not so distant past, there was a beautifully poetic vision theory that proclaimed the eye to contain a small crystal, carefully shaping the light so that it may bring us illumination.

Much is still left to our imagination when determining whether what we see is actually there. Like emitters, our eyes seem to create parts of what we perceive; one need only look for the blind spots in the centre of their sightline or the colourful afterimages orchestrated by the brain. Much like crystals indeed, our eyes mediate light and what we see.

The series Paracosms was initiated during a residency on the southern coast of Spain.

Constructions

Re-envisioning vision. Exploring the boundaries between the physical and the imagined, the perceived, and the misperceived. Constructions uses landscapes as structures through which to investigate and pull apart these territories of sight.

I create these stereoscopic photographs from backpacking trips to investigate our inability to accurately grasp the world. These images confront us with paradoxical vision. First, there is the flat, colorful image of a wondrous place. Then, with glasses on, there is red, or blue, if one eye is shut. The combined 3D image shows a fourth perspective where the scene’s planes appear to jut outwards or recede behind the photographic surface. There are others if the eyes focus on the geometric symbols pointing to where the construct breaks down. An image can be perceived in many ways.

Formed through technical experimentation across film and digital cameras, the series begins with old 16mm film footage of strangers’ home movies which have been digitized to video. Home movies may be the closest tangible representation of memory we have. Their movement and ephemerality share similarities with how we encounter memories in our mind’s eye. The moment one frame has passed and moved onto the next, what we have seen in turn becomes part of our memory, which we must rely upon in order to follow - to create - the narrative. Of all the home movies viewed in researching this project, it was found that all such captured memories are uncannily similar, falling into one of only a dozen or so categories. A stranger’s memories at times seem indistinguishable from mine.

Using a long exposure, I photograph moments of these time-based representations of memories to present them in a single image. The time span contained within each image is of one minute. The resulting print is eerie and nostalgic; dark, blurred vision. Like that of remembrance, these images defy solid gaze. The still rivalling movement becomes an incoherent narrative producing affect instead of answers. It may, however, be memory’s most accurate representation.

Horizon RGB

Full spectrum color changing lightbox, fujitrans film print, 2017-18.

Horizon RGB is a light box that compares natural and artificial light in full spectrum while exploring horizon gradients. Here, an image of the sunset sky on the coast of Spain fleetingly appears and disappears while its colors change slowly.

- "Annie's work explores what we perceive as real while drawing a parallel between the artificial and natural. Her works often includes technology and optical illusion elements much like a magician who forces us to rethink what is that we have in front of us." - Monica Reyes, Director/Curator, Back Gallery Project